U.K News

In Britain, ‘Warm Hubs’ Emerge To Beat Soaring Energy Costs in 2023

Published

2 years ago

2023-03-04

Kiara Grace

STRATFORD UPON AVON, England— The foyer of the Other Place theater is a warm haven on a chilly late-winter day in Shakespeare’s hometown. Coffee-shop goers hold meetings, check emails, compose poems, and take sewing classes.

The Royal Shakespeare Company drama troupe opened a “warm hub,” which looks and feels like an artsy café in the picturesque streets of Stratford-upon-Avon, to welcome people struggling to heat their homes due to sky-high energy prices.

As rising food and energy prices force millions to turn down the thermostat or cut back on hot meals, thousands of warm hubs have sprung up across Britain this winter. Nearly 13,000 of these hubs were identified by the opposition Labour Party’s research. They are located in places as diverse as libraries, churches, community centers, and even a tearoom at King Charles III’s Highgrove country estate and are supported by a combination of charitable, community, and government funding.

A mutual friend told seventh-generation Stratfordian and artist/author Wendy Freeman about the Britain RSC’s welcoming hub. The only heat source in her “tiny house” is a coal fire. The highest inflation since the 1980s has caused a cost-of-living crisis, and she has had to make sacrifices like many others.

More people in Britain are struggling to make ends meet due to the combined effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine,

Freeman, 69, took advantage of the center’s warm, quiet environment to work on a poem. “You just adapt,” he said. “Simple things like using less water in the tea kettle. I was taught to “save the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves.” I stick to eating seasonal, home-cooked meals.

She continued, “But it’s nice to go somewhere warm.

More people in Britain are struggling to make ends meet due to the combined effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ongoing disruption caused by the pandemic, and the economic aftershocks of Brexit. When Russia invaded Ukraine, it caused the price of natural gas used for heating to skyrocket, pushing the United Kingdom to the verge of a recession. This hit households and businesses particularly hard.

The annual inflation rate in the Bitain United Kingdom was just over 10% in January, with food prices rising by nearly 17% year-over-year. According to the Office of National Statistics, approximately 62% of adults are reducing their natural gas and electricity consumption to cut costs. Survey firm Survation found that one-third of households frequently have trouble making ends meet.

The average Britain household’s energy bill is still double what it was a year ago, despite the decline in oil and natural gas prices from their highs earlier this year. In many cases, prices will increase by 20% on April 1 due to a government-imposed price cap increase.

Former math teacher Anne Bolger discovered the cozy gathering place while out for a stroll and has been a regular visitor ever since. She occasionally stops by to do things like jigsaw puzzles, check email, and study for her math tutoring job.

Today is the day that I appreciate it because it’s so cold at home,” she said.

The average Britain household’s energy bill is still double what it was a year ago.

The hub operates once per week on Thursday afternoons in the RSC’s smallest of three performance spaces. On Tuesday, the space was occupied by a diverse group of people: theatre workers, actors on their way to rehearsals, and curious onlookers hoping to warm up. Free tea, coffee, Wi-Fi, a sewing table, board games, puzzles, and toys for children are provided.

Bolger, who is 66 years old, praised the store’s conduciveness to creativity Britain. People are meeting, conversing, and working in that area. I feel more connected and alive when I’m out and about, as opposed to at home.

This is exactly the kind of feedback the event planners hoped to receive. Warm hubs are said to alleviate energy poverty and isolation.

“The warmth is in the welcome as much as a warm building to come to,” explained Nicola Salmon, the RSC’s creative place-making manager overseeing the hub. Talking to someone is a natural part of being here.

Stratford, located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Britain London, is a thriving community thanks largely to its most famous son, William Shakespeare. On cold winter weekdays, visitors can be seen going through streets lined with Tudor-style half-timbering on their way to the birthplace of the Bard, the classroom where he was educated, and his grave in the 13th-century Holy Trinity Church.

Warm hubs are an emergency response that looks to be here to stay

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is Stratford’s major employer and cultural institution. According to Salmon, the company’s “warm hub” is an attempt to better connect with the local community. The town is “often perceived as affluent and well-off,” but it has “areas of great deprivation,” he says.

Warm hubs are an emergency response that looks to be here to stay, much like the 2,500 food banks in the United Kingdom.

In 2021, as pandemic restrictions left many rural residents in Britain isolated, the Warwickshire Rural Community Council, a charity serving the county around Stratford, opened a warm mobile hub in the form of a minibus converted into a pop-up outdoor café.

With support from Cadent, the private company that distributes much of Britain’s heating gas, the charity ran five hubs across the county a year ago. With the onset of winter and the accompanying increase in energy costs, the group quickly grew to 90, with services ranging from catered meals to repair clinics and classes on slow cooking to cut down on gas consumption.

A mobile hub will travel five days a week, and about 30 permanent hubs will remain open over the summer.

“People say we shouldn’t be in this situation, and we shouldn’t be,” said Jackie Holcroft, manager of the charity’s Britain warm hubs. To counter that, however, we are. And I think one of the most incredible things is how many people in Warwickshire have volunteered their time to help.

At the end of March, the RSC will shut down its warm space, but preparations are underway for its return in 2019.

Bolger, a regular, expressed his sadness over its impending absence. I don’t want the fuel shortage to last forever, but I hope this place remains operational.
SOURCE – (AP)

U.K News

Keir Starmer Rejects Meeting With WW2 Veteran Over Her Frozen Pension

Published

3 weeks ago

2024-12-04

Geoff Brown

Anne Puckridge, orld War Two veteran, state pension

"It's the injustice of it that is so unfair, the fact that we were never warned."

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has rejected a request from a 99-year-old WW2 for a meeting to discuss the frozen state pension policy for citizens living abroad. Starmer declined the meeting but offered an alternative meeting with Pensions Minister Emma Reynolds.

Anne Puckridge, who turns 100 this month, went from her home in Canada to agitate Keir Starmer’s Labour government over the state pension freeze.

The World War II veteran told the BBC that she is “angry” and “heartbroken” following a meeting with the pensions minister, who led her to believe that the government will not reconsider its policy of freezing the state pensions of some British people living abroad.

Anne Puckridge is one of approximately 453,000 British retirees living overseas who do not receive an annual increase in their state pension.

Pensions Minister Emma Reynolds agreed to a meeting after Sir Keir Starmer’s request to meet was denied owing to purported “pressures on his diary.”

Ms. Puckridge stated that the meeting in Parliament left her feeling “bitterly disappointed” and “disgusted”.

She stated that she had the idea Reynolds had been “polite enough and kind enough to come in and spend her time with her,” but that her mind had already been made up before the meeting began.

Ms Puckridge stated that she and her other campaigners would have to think carefully about what they could do from now on, but she assured them that they would take action.

State Pension Minister Reynolds thanked Ms Puckridge for the meeting and for sharing her insights.

A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) representative stated that the government recognizes that “people move abroad for various reasons, and we provide clear information on how this can affect their pensions.”

The policy of increasing the UK state pension for recipients living abroad has existed for many years.

Since she relocated to Canada in 2001 at the age of 76 to live closer to her daughter, Ms Puckridge has received £72.50 (C$129.00) per week.

Her state pension is now less than half the £169.50 (C$302.00) paid to seniors still residing in the United Kingdom. She told the BBC that frozen pensions touch all aspects of life.

“You’ve got to be careful about entertainment,” she told me. “You must realize that you cannot be as kind to your grandkids as you would like.

“You feel you’ve lost all sense of dignity, the government has thrown you away, you know, out of sight out of mind.”

Ms. Puckridge stated that when she alerted the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that she was moving to Canada, “they never said a word about [my] pension being frozen”.

“The first I knew about it was when my first rise was due,” she recalled.

“I didn’t understand it. So I wrote and enquired about it, and I was told no… you will not receive any additional pension rises when you leave the UK.” She said, “It’s the injustice of it that is so unfair, the fact that we were never warned.”

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U.K News

Air Force Drones Spotted Over UK Military Bases

Published

3 weeks ago

2024-11-29

Geoff Brown

Air Force Drones Spotted Over UK Military Bases

The drones were not considered hostile, the USAF said,

British military expertise has been brought in to assist in identifying persons responsible for flying Air Force drones near US military locations. According to the BBC, 60 RAF troops have been dispatched to assist the US Air Force with its probe.

The Air Force drones were not deemed hostile, according to the USAF, who added that the sightings “fluctuated and varied between the bases” and “ranged in sizes and configurations”.

According to the Ministry of Defence, “We are supporting the US Air Force response.”

The announcement follows several recent reports of unmanned aerial vehicles sighted near RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk and RAF Feltwell in adjacent Norfolk.

There have been other reports of drone activity overnight. According to the USAF, the vehicles were few in number and modest in size.

A representative for the US Air Forces in Europe stated, “We can confirm that there were sightings yesterday during nighttime hours, but the number fluctuated and varied between the bases throughout the night.”

The official stated that since the first sightings on November 20th, there has been “no impact on residents or infrastructure, and they have not been identified as hostile.”

However, the Air Force drones remained under surveillance “to ensure the safety and security of the installations.”

They said, “We request individuals in the area to contact either local police or security forces if they see anything suspicious.”

‘Treat threats seriously’

Officials in the United States and the United Kingdom have not said who is responsible for the recent drone activity.

However, the BBC understands there were worries that a state actor could be involved.

In recent months, intelligence officials have warned of increasing Russian sabotage operations against Western countries supporting Ukraine.

RAF Mildenhall is primarily home to the USAF’s 100th Air Refuelling Wing; RAF Lakenheath is home to USAF F-35A and F-15E fighter jets; and RAF Feltwell is mainly concerned with logistics and provides housing for military personnel.

A spokesman for the MoD, which owns the bases, said: “We take threats seriously and maintain robust measures at defence sites.

“We are supporting the US Air Force response.”

The USAF has not said who it believed to be behind the incidents.

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U.K News

General Election Petition in UK Hits 2 Million Signatures

Published

4 weeks ago

2024-11-26

Geoff Brown

Starmer has ruled out an general election after a petition reached two million signatures

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has ruled out holding an early general election after a petition calling for a second vote garnered two million signatures.

Over the weekend, a petition calling for another general election was started on the UK Parliament website. It cited Starmer’s failure to keep all his pledges made in the run-up to the previous election. By Monday mid-morning, it had surpassed two million signatures.

When asked about the petition, Starmer said he was “not surprised” that some individuals who did not vote for Labour in the previous election want a “re-run” of the poll.

He claimed that he had “inherited a lot of problems” from the previous administration and had resolved to “take the hard decisions first.”

Starmer ruled out an early general election, stating that only the Prime Minister can request that the King call a general election; it simply will not happen, he said.

This petition, started last week and sponsored by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, calls on the government to schedule a new general election.
To sign a petition, you must verify that you are a British citizen or resident and provide a postcode.

The petition states, “I would prefer there to be another general election. I believe the present Labour government has broken the pledges they made before the last election.”

The petition comes only five months after Labour won the July general election with 9.7 million votes and 412 seats in the House of Commons.

However, the Labour Party garnered only 35% of the vote, the lowest percentage gained by a single-party administration since the conclusion of WWII.

Some of the policies implemented by Starmer and his Labour government have received significant criticism, including an inheritance tax on farms, a reduction in winter heating payments, an increase in employers’ national insurance, and applying VAT to private school fees.

According to the most recent Ipsos political pulse poll, the Labour Party is unpopular, with 28% of the public favoring it and 49% opposing it.